Along with others who migrated to the Rocky Mountain West during the mid-nineteenth century, former Union and Confederate soldiers mixed in remote western locales like the mountains and valleys of Idaho. Miners settled land and panned for gold in Idaho as early as 1860, and in July 1866, a group of friends led by Frank Barney Sharkey found gold along Napias Creek, a tributary of the Salmon River.
\nThe news spread quickly, and other prospectors rushed to the region. By August, neighbors in Bannock, Idaho reported being “quite unprepared for the stampede that set in… for the Lemhi Valley.”
\nThe new community of prospectors included veterans from both sides of the Civil War, and they soon found themselves having one last “battle,” but over the name of the community. Unable to reconcile, the pioneers settled for having two names for two communities in the one town—Grantsville named for Union General Ulysses S. Grant and Leesburg for Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
\nThe Leesburg–Grantsville compromise was short-lived. Grantsville never managed to claim more than 500 residents of its own, but Leesburg’s population swelled into the thousands. On top of that, the town’s streets were continuous and provided no clear border. Eventually people used the Leesburg name to refer to the overall community, and the Grantsville name was forgotten. Two thousand miles away from Appomattox, for at least a handful of Civil War veterans, Lee managed to get in the last word.
\nWhile post-Civil War Reconstruction led to extensive violence in the south, Leesburg remained fairly calm. Observers called the camp “unusually quiet for a mining camp and free from fights and disturbances.” The website Western Mining History speculates the Leesburgers may have been too busy surviving to waste time on fights. After all, a twelve-man team took a month-and-a-half to clear a path through the deep snows of the winter of 1866–1867 so that a pack train could bring food relief in March, saving Leesburg from starvation.
\nAfter surviving that first winter, Leesburg’s population went through a rapid boom and bust. Thousands came in search of gold, and at the rush’s height some 3,000 people lived in Leesburg, including both white Americans and Chinese migrants from the West Coast. Leesburg hosted a one-room school and a hundred business firms, and its main street was a mile long. However, miners soon became unsatisfied with their returns, and interest declined. The population plummeted to 180 people by 1870 and less than sixty by 1895. Yet the allure of gold kept drawing interest back to Leesburg. In 1926, Idahoans built a small monument in Leesburg to commemorate Sharkey’s discovery of gold sixty years earlier. Meanwhile, industrial hydraulic mining and dragline mining intermittently extracted more gold out of the Leesburg area from 1926 to 1942, though these operations also did not last.
\nLeesburg joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, and today only a few cabins still stand. Few traces remain of the ghost town’s Southern migrants and Confederate veterans except for the name—their one last victory over Grant and his Union soldiers.
","sponsor":null,"accessinfo":"This marks Leesburg. The ghost town is still there physically, but most buildings are in a state of significant decay.","lede":"Only a year prior, these Civil War veterans had fought on opposing sides. But the promise of gold made for strange bedfellows.","website":"","related_resources":["Abernathy, Christopher, Jeremiah Bauer, Michael T. Caires, Mari Crabtree, Chris Hayashida-Knight, Krista Kinslow, Ashley Mays, Keith McCall, Ryan Poe, Bradley Proctor, Emma Teitelman, Nicole Turner, and Caitlin Verboon. “Reconstruction.” Edited by Nicole Turner. In The American Yawp. Vol. 1, Before 1877. Edited by Joseph Locke and Ben Wright. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2018. Ebook. https://www.americanyawp.com/text/15-reconstruction/. ","Brand, Lauren, Carole Butcher, Josh Garrett-Davis, Tracey Hanshew, Lindsay Stallones Marshall, Nick Roland, David Schley, Emma Teitelman, and Alyce Webb. “Conquering the West.” Edited by Lauren Brand. In The American Yawp. Vol. 1, Before 1877. Edited by Joseph Locke and Ben Wright. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2018. Ebook. https://www.americanyawp.com/text/17-conquering-the-west/. ","Curtis, Kent. “Producing a Gold Rush: National Ambitions and the Northern Rocky Mountains, 1853—1863.” Western Historical Quarterly 40, no. 3 (Autumn 2009): 275–297.","Find a Grave. “Barney Sharkey.” Accessed September 17, 2021. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/31155806/barney-sharkey. ","Fisher, Vardis, ed. The Idaho Encyclopedia. Idaho Federal Writer’s Project. Caldwell, ID: Caxton Printers, 1938.","Janney, Caroline E. “Lost Cause, The.” Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities. February 9, 2021. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/lost-cause-the. ","Kirkpatrick, Orion E. History of Leesburg Pioneers. Salt Lake City: Pyramid Press, 1934.","Open Corporates. “Bonanza Placer, Inc.” Last updated September 13, 2021. Accessed September 17, 2021. https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_id/0000061477.","Rees, John E. Idaho: Chronology, Nomenclature, Bibliography. Chicago: W.B. Conkey Company, 1918. Ebook. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/idahochronologyn00reesrich. ","Relk, Joe. Idaho Highway Historical Marker Guide. Boise: Idaho Transportation Department. PDF. Idaho State Historical Society. https://history.idaho.gov/wp-content/uploads/Idaho-Highway-Historical-Marker-Guide.pdf.","Servis, Joe. “The Surrender Meeting.” Appomattox Courthouse National Historical Park, National Park Service. August 6, 2020. https://www.nps.gov/apco/learn/historyculture/the-surrender-meeting.htm. ","Visit Salmon Valley. “Ghost Towns.” Accessed September 17, 2021. https://www.visitsalmonvalley.com/historic-adventures/ghost-towns/.","Western Mining History. “Leesburg, Idaho.” Accessed September 17, 2021. https://westernmininghistory.com/towns/idaho/leesburg/."],"factoids":[],"files":{"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/d2d3a52593bbb82ec75f0d06b6e38da4.jpg":{"id":2021,"mime-type":"image/png","title":"Leesburg, Idaho","description":"These are among the first buildings built in Leesburg, Idaho. By the time this photo was taken, though, Leesburg’s population was already declining. | “Buildings, Leesburg, Idaho.” A.F. Thrasher, 1870. Courtesy of the Idaho State Historical Society. https://idahohistory.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p265501coll1/id/748. | A.F. Thrasher","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/d2d3a52593bbb82ec75f0d06b6e38da4.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/5ca8fe05a359f97c807e801296eada43.jpg":{"id":2022,"mime-type":"image/png","title":"Historic Marker at Leesburg","description":"Orion Ephraim Kirkpatrick sponsored this monument commemorating the discovery of gold in Leesburg. Two of the women in the photograph are Esther Amonson Pyeatt and Anna Edwards Wright, identified as daughters of Idaho pioneers. | “Monuments, Leesburg, Idaho.” July 17, 1926. Courtesy of the Idaho State Historical Society. https://idahohistory.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p265501coll1/id/749.","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/5ca8fe05a359f97c807e801296eada43.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/7af4d13f6c0d4980ac95c1a984338823.jpg":{"id":2023,"mime-type":"image/png","title":"Posing with the marker","description":"The young men posing with the monument in the photograph have not been identified, and their relationship to Leesburg is unclear. | “Historical Markers, Leesburg, Idaho.” July 17, 1926. Courtesy of the Idaho State Historical Society. https://idahohistory.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p265501coll1/id/744.","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/7af4d13f6c0d4980ac95c1a984338823.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/311ed3e2086f3680b5c0af814873e0d0.jpg":{"id":2024,"mime-type":"image/png","title":"Bonanza Placers, Inc.","description":"In 1926, Bonanza Placers, Inc. brought hydraulic mining to Leesburg. The word “placers” in the name likely referred to prospectors who panned for gold in Leesburg a generation earlier, as gold panning was also called “placer mining.” |“Mines - Leesburg ‘Bonanza Placers, Inc. - Pictures taken at property, Left by Col. Hodson’ 1.” Courtesy of the Idaho State Historical Society. https://idahohistory.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p265501coll1/id/22.
","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/311ed3e2086f3680b5c0af814873e0d0.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/9c90ac79dc1b926b079aba5a82873ad1.jpg":{"id":2025,"mime-type":"image/png","title":"Bonanza Placers miners","description":" These fifteen men are at the Bonanza Placers, Inc. mine near Leesburg, Idaho. | “Mines - Leesburg ‘Bonanza Placers, Inc. - Pictures taken at property, Left by Col. Hodson.’” Courtesy of the Idaho State Historical Society. https://idahohistory.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p265501coll1/id/21.","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/9c90ac79dc1b926b079aba5a82873ad1.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/4a9c878892d8f02869b2cfac1a2438e8.jpg":{"id":2028,"mime-type":"image/png","title":"Hydraulic mining","description":"Hydraulic mining used huge amounts of water to “wash” out gold. | “Hydraulic Mining - Leesburg.” March 28, 1936. Courtesy of the Idaho State Historical Society. https://idahohistory.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p265501coll1/id/106.","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/4a9c878892d8f02869b2cfac1a2438e8.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/df14984af2122e61b4f2946de2d5ab89.jpg":{"id":2026,"mime-type":"image/png","title":"Leesburg Mining District","description":"In this map from the Historic American Engineering Record of the Library of Congress, Bonanza’s hydraulic mining site can be seen just south of where Leesburg is marked on the map. | “Leesburg Mining District, Napias & Moose Creeks, Salmon, Lemhi County, ID.” Historic American Engineering Record, compiled after 1968. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/resource/hhh.id0172.sheet.","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/df14984af2122e61b4f2946de2d5ab89.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/ed8fb0683cbff15da239a8f1123660f0.jpg":{"id":2027,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Old schoolhouse","description":"This building used to be a schoolhouse for children in Leesburg. | “View Showing West Side and South Front of Schoolhouse (Feature 12), Looking Northeast - Leesburg Townsite, Schoolhouse, Napias Creek, Salmon, Lemhi County, ID.” Historic American Buildings survey, compiled after 1933. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/id0198.photos.059729p/.","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/ed8fb0683cbff15da239a8f1123660f0.jpg"}}}